So Much To Be Afraid Of

Kate Bollinger “I Don’t Wanna Lose”

“I Don’t Wanna Lose” has a light, easy-going feel to it, but under the seeming tranquility of the music is a tangle of confusion, fear, and insecurity. Kate Bollinger confronts all of this with modesty and self-deprecating wit – “so what if it’s all my decisions / or my indecision / oh, I just can’t pick one” – but doesn’t deny herself the weight of her emotions. Given the tone of her words and the graceful and relaxed tone of her arrangement, the anxiety at the heart of the song is placed in a greater context. There, but ultimately at scale with the rest of her life, and what’s around her. It’s like a coping mechanism set to music, like she’s carefully guiding herself through a maze of emotion to get to the desired point: “I just wanna win.”

Buy it from Bandcamp.